Thursday Thought: Names

Recently on Nathan Bransford's blog he addressed the subject of pen names. He gave a pretty good list of pros and cons around using pen names.

It reminded me of when I was younger and despised my name. I mean, Windy. Seriously? Bring on the weather/breezy/rainy/hurricane jokes. What were my parents thinking?

And forget discussing my maiden name. It's 12-letters long and pretty much a horrific tongue twister.

I always wanted to change my name. I hated it. All of it. Why couldn't I have a full name that was something common and that people could actually say?

Now that I'm no longer 10 years old trying to blend in with everyone else, I've realized how lucky I am. My names were/are different. Maybe not completely easy to say, but not that easily forgotten.

Sort of makes it helpful in the world of networking and moving toward publication. Besides, who doesn't want to be a pirate?

What do you think about the name you've got ready to go on the cover of your first NYT Best Seller?

Thursday Thought: Conjunction Junction

So we have a 4-year-old who has recently started preschool. We will call her Phephe (as in Fifi. Don't ask.). Anyway, as with most children of a certain age, they say some pretty interesting things. Here are a few notable quotes from Phephe:

"Mommy, I think you and I need to sit down and have a conversation."

"Actually, I think we should go to the zoo instead."

"Uncle Andrew makes me so frustrated because he eats so many hamburgers!"

I know, kinda random. I was just amazed she knew words like conversation, actually and frustrated and understood their meanings enough to use them in the proper context!

So when we sat down to eat dinner the other day and she decided she didn't want to eat a certain dish that was made she said, "Momma, I amn't going to eat that."

Yes. Amn't.

The husband and I just looked at each other for a moment, stunned.

Just for some background information, my parents came to this country speaking very little English. I grew up in a household speaking 2 languages simultaneously. Even now, we speak both languages, switching seamlessly between the two. When my parents were learning English they were always told it is one of the hardest languages to learn, because there are so many quirks in it.

Phephe has apparently found another. My husband and I tried to explain that amn't is not a proper contraction and gave her "I'm not" to use instead. She nodded and smiled and we continued on our merry dinner-eating way.

So now I'm waiting for the moment when she turns back to me and asks if

IS + NOT = Isn't
ARE + NOT = Aren't
DO + NOT = Don't
etc.

Then why does AM + NOT not equal Amn't?

I think I amn't sure what to say.

Thursday Thought: People-ese

Totally random and I'm not even sure where this came from, but when this happens, I figure I'd share. Just so you all can really meet the real, oh-so-random, me.

So people from France are French.
People from England are English.
People from Spain are Spanish or Spaniards.
Peeps from Italy = Italians.
Greece = Greek.
Norway = Norwegian.
Canada = Canadians.
America = Americans.


But why is it that in most Asian countries people are some kind of -ese?
JapanESE
ChinESE
TaiwanESE
BurmESE
VietnamESE

That's not to say there aren't countries where people are not an -ese. Thai, Laotion, Cambodian, Indonesian, etc.

Like I said. Totally random. Doesn't mean anything. Just a thought.

Thursday Thought: Location, Location, Location

Last Thursday while I was in Mexico City with work I brought up the thoughts about settings in stories. Real or make-believe, I think where a story takes place is as important as the characters the story is about. The setting is almost another character itself, because places have so many facets that make them what . . . where they are. All locations have a personality and that's something to keep in mind in your writing.

In my recent travels, I've found that being out of my element really helped keep my creativity refreshed and introduced me to a few places with very different personalities.

So, I'm continuing last Thursday's Thought to share a some pics from a few places I've been in the last few months.

The view out my hotel room door in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

This is the view out my hotel room balcony in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

A definite Yin / Yang situation here.

* * * * * *

A couple pictures of the amazing Utah / Nevada desert. Don't mind the glare, that desert sun is HOT!

* * * * * *

A couple pictures of Mexico City. So different from what I imagined, but exactly what I've seen in movies and on TV.

So there you have it, a few places that have inspired me.

What are your inspirations for your settings? How do you pick your settings? Or do your settings pick you?

Thursday Thought: The Wheres

So today is the last full day in Mexico and I've decided that if I can't truly uncook my brain enough to write new words, I'm just going to take in EVERYTHING around me and use it as inspiration, yanno, when that part of my brain starts to work again.

Over the course of the last few months I've taken a lot more pictures of my surroundings than I ever remember taking before and it has really helped me in figuring out where something happens in my new wip as opposed to just being random about location.

I've mostly tried to base locations in my books on places I've been or am really familiar with. My new project has me thinking outside this box of "safe" places I can pick from and now I've gone a bit camera crazy, trying to find just the right place for each of the pivotal scenes. Well, the ones I've been able to find words for anyway. (See yesterday's post.)

So what places inspire you? Are they real? Have you been there? Or are they imaginary and you're always there?

Would love to hear your thoughts. . . I'm off to the office, then going to click some more pics of the area. Will put some stuff up to share when I get back home!

Thursday Thought: A 2nd (or 3rd, 4th, 5th...) Opinion

I've spent some time over the last few months trying get more involved with the online writing community. De-lurk, as it were. I no longer just read blogs, tweets and forums, I comment, rally and conversate. My "circle o' writing peeps" I know has grown and I am grateful for that, though I've found my one lacking point.

This is where I am reaching out to you out there for suggestions / direction, whatever that may be.

I don't even know where to start beyond asking you guys for help. I'm looking for crit buddies/beta readers. I know there are a lot of websites out there and I've been poking around and trying to see if there is anything that looks worth trying out. (Have signed up for Critique Circle, etc.)

So how did you guys end up in your crit groups? With your crit buddies? Any advice?

A Thursday Thought: The Perfect Man

Wow! A new segment and two weeks in a row! I totally wasn't expecting that.

I'm on a plane home from Baltimore today, so really, this was a REALLY late Wednesday night thought, or early Thursday morning thought, depending on what time zone you're in, but I figured I'd round to the next full day, yeah? Okay.

What was I saying again? Oh yes, the perfect man.

I have been reading a lot of YA Fantasy lately and have found this "perfect guy" thing coming up again and again. Edward Cullen is described again and again as perfect in looks, charm and intelligence. Damen Auguste, the adjectives are less repetitive, but similarly descriptive. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect.

So what of the lovable endearing guys who are flawed?

I've said before, I am a big Sarah Dessen fan. So much so that one of my all time favorite books is This Lullaby. I realize that Ms. Dessen doesn't write YA Fantasy, more on the YA Contemporary Fic side, and this is probably why. Within This Lullaby is Dexter. A sometimes employed musician with wild curly hair who forgets to tie his shoes, doesn't really know how to do his laundry, challenges people to completely insane things (think eating a dozen bananas in 1 sitting) and can't seem to stay in one place for very long, Dexter is the complete opposite of all these idealized, arguably perfect characters I've read about in recent YA Paranormal/Fantasy.

That being said, does this mean that in order to be a good male protagonist in this genre there should be something that makes him arguably perfect? It would seem so, to me anyway. That's not to say that the endearingly lovable guy who doesn't have great hair and chiseled features doesn't have a place in YA Paranormal/Fantasy, but it would seem less likely that his place is alongside the female protag.

Maybe I'm completely off base here and it's just been the books I've chosen to read in this genre, I dunno. Definitely correct me if I'm wrong. And if you have any recommended readings to help me find a "Dexter" in YA Paranormal/Fantasy, I am game!

In reality, there are way more Dexters out there than there are Edward Cullens, so I just wanted to point that out. Not that the Edward Cullen-esque guys don't exist. I'm sure they do. I just wouldn't hold my breath.

Just a thought.

A Thursday Thought: Pie O' Knowledge

A new segment that will appear semi-regularly. Probably not weekly, but I'll do my best. Though I have lots of thoughts - most are not nearly as profound as I'd like them to be, but maybe they can provide a bit of random trivia to you, or better yet, maybe they could lead you to a few of your own profound thoughts . . . hmm, now there's something to think about.

So yesterday Eric over at Working My Muse did a post around Realizing How Much I Don't Know. Funny thing this, because during my travels recently one of the sessions of training I was in covered a sort of "What You Know" topic. The three highlights we discussed? Well I have a little Pie o'Knowledge chart to show you. (ElanaJ - chart queen extraordinaire - might appreciate this!)

#1 - You know what you know.

Well, yeah, that's obvious. I know a lot of things about a lot of things. Some of them relevant to this adventure to be published, some of them not. Some of them important to life, some of them just simply random trivia. I know who I am, where I went to school, what I do for a living (sort of). I know the year, make and model of all the cars at my parents' house (there are a lot of cars) and I can sing every Taylor Swift song from both her albums (that's a whole other story). But yeah, I know what I know.

#2 - You know what you don't know.

Easy enough to make a list of these things. Also, like #1, fairly obvious. I don't know how to play the piano - though I wish I did. I don't know how to ride a motorcycle. I don't know why my office is an arctic ice box even though the thermostat is set at 85 degrees F. These are just a few of the many things I know that I don't know.

And the biggest piece of the pie?

#3 - You don't know what you don't know.

Well, yeah. I would list stuff here, but I can't seeing as if I knew that I didn't know it, it would then move into #2. So I don't know what I don't know.

Make sense? Okay then.

So what's the learning? Why am I babbling endlessly about this? Well, this may have been a training about some corporate strategy planning I was at, but this applies to writing as well.

The goal of it all is to figure out what you don't know you don't know, move it into what you know you don't know, so that you can learn more about it, and then move from there into knowing what you know.

It's just about continuing to learn. Continuing to grow and hone the craft and know that there will always be things you don't know you don't know, but as soon as you figure out that you don't know it, that big huge hunk of the pie gets just a little bit smaller and what you know, whether it's something you know or don't know, will get bigger.

Are we clear? Okay, good.

Just wanted to give you something to think about!

[Update: correction on the motorcycle driving - ride or drive, clearly I don't know how ;) Thanks Eric!]